Senate said yesterday that the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke "has something to hide" over her alleged persistent refusal to honour invitations from its Ad-Hoc Committee on the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P). This is even as there are indications that President Goodluck Jonathan may present the 2014 budget to the National Assembly tomorrow.
Chairman of the committee and Deputy Senate Leader, Abdul Ningi, told newsmen yesterday that the minister has allegedly turned down three invitations to appear before the panel to explain alleged discrepancies in the N834.331 billion received from the N32 deducted in the 25 billion litres of petrol fuel sold between January 2012 and September 2013.
The committee disclosed that from its investigations, only N300 billion has so far been paid out to SURE-P.
At the sitting on November 5, the committee concluded that the CBN and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have a case to answer over the alleged fraud in the remittances to SURE-P.
A member of the committee, Senator Kabiru Marafa, had claimed that his colleagues observed that over N834 billion ought to have accrued to the nation for the SURE – P if N32.00 was removed from the 770, 695, 645 litres of fuel sold in 21 months.
He said the figure was contained in an October 9 letter from the Ministry on Petroleum Resources addressed to the committee and signed by its Director of Finance and Accounts, Mr. Salmanu Faskari. Speaking yesterday, Senator Ningi bemoaned a situation where an appointee of government would routinely shun invitations from the Senate.
At the resumed sitting of the committee yesterday, Senator Ningi noted that the minister's appearance scheduled for 1pm, was re-scheduled till 2:17 pm, hoping that she would honour the invitation.
He said that no matter what it takes, the committee would ensure that the minister appears before the committee to explain how the accrued funds have been expended.
His words: "This is exactly more than one and half hours after the scheduled time for the meeting. I thought we have waited patiently.
"I think that the Ministry of Petroleum Resources is the custodian of the SURE-P and we feel that they have things to hide and we strongly believe that documentation that we have received from the ministry embarrasses us as a committee and it should embarrass the ministry as well because simple statistics and arithmetic is found all through their presentation.
"There are various contradictions in the statistics provided and when we first sat here, we said this programme has not been run transparently enough, for Nigerians to believe that this is the programme that comes out of fewer democratic dividends.
Ningi told bemused committee members that the matter had earlier been reported to Senate President David Mark who promised to take up the matter with President Goodluck Jonathan,
"I, as the Chairman of this committee, cannot outrightly say that this is what will happen; neither can the committee say this is what would happen. We invited the minister severally to appear; she didn't appear and neither did she send a representative. We took the matter to the leadership of the Senate and the leadership, in fact, the President of the Senate assured us that he would take this matter to the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, who in fact, hired the minister.
Meanwhile, President Jonathan is expected to present the N4.77 trillion 2014 budget to the National Assembly tomorrow.
Senator Ningi disclosed this to newsmen at the meeting of the committee yesterday.
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